As if You Have a Choice
by Kataraang0
Summary: A series of one-shots on the effects of Shuriki's reign and the royal family's imprisonment.
1. As if You Have a Choice

**A/N So this series and _Light Up_ were inspired by the song "Run" by Snow Patrol (It kept playing in my head while I was writing anyhow). The chapter titles are lyrics from the song, go check it out it's lovely. Also, if you don't want extra angst in your life, ignore the last italicized part in parentheses.**

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 **As if You Have a Choice**

 _Mateo on the essence of magic and finding the confidence to free Isa and the abuelos from the painting._

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 _"He wishes magic would come as naturally to him as it does for them."_

Though in certain moments, it seems that it can.

The thing about magic, one of the first things any magician is taught, is that the magic does not come from within.

If you are born with magical tendencies, it does not mean that you yourself are magical. It doesn't even mean that you'll be any good at wielding magic. It means that you are now a bearer of magic, a designated portal through which the energy of the universe can flow.

And it can be overwhelming.

You have so much potential power, and if you navigate through your studies too fast, if you're hungry for the power instead of the knowledge or the responsibility, it will consume you.

So Mateo hesitates, he gets nervous, and he messes up in ways that cause the pages to explode out of his books like a feather pillow in a fight at a slumber party. The wreckage floats slowly down around him giving him ample time to think about how he'll ever be able to get three human beings out of a two dimensional painting in one piece.

And he realizes that it doesn't matter how he feels about it, it has to be done. He has to continue his training to put things right when the time comes. It's what he was meant to do, what he has been told he must do ever since his grandfather's death, when the gray wizard pressed a paper into his grandson's hand with a final determined spark in his eye.

Mateo keeps the reversal spell for the painting hidden on his person at all times.

So he tries and fails and tries and fails again. Because he knows he has the power to be some kind of small hero. To be an immense force of destruction - just enough to help destroy what Shuriki created.

And when the time comes, he focuses on the strength of the family in the painting, the perseverance of his grandfather, the fortitude of those who suffered under the sorceress.

And the magic comes easily.

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( _and after that...after that moment of truth is over and done, after that he has to keep control. he has to keep practicing because the peace he helped achieve can't be jeopardized just because he's too afraid of his own power._

 _and who knows if it could happen again - a kingdom ruled by a teenager with an under experienced royal wizard, still recovering from an evil dictatorship._

 _it's ripe for the picking, after all.)_


	2. I Can Hardly Speak I Understand

**A/N I told myself I'd wait til I'd written the third chapter before posting this, but I couldn't do it! So there might be a tiny hiatus for that chapter. Also, warning: angst ahead. Blame Shuriki.**

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 **I Can Hardly Speak I Understand**

 _Elena on ruling a kingdom whose struggles she doesn't know._

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The thought occurs to her in small moments, like when she passes the homeless who gather on the other side of the market on her way to visit Naomi.

Like when she traipses under the scaffolding holding up the ravaged church just off the town square.

Like when the reports come in of bandit factions in the hills to the west, early in the morning before a council meeting. (And she notices these are always addressed to Esteban.)

She wonders at how the children will run up to her without inhibition while the elderly watch, and an unnerving amount of the well-weathered onlookers glare.

Once, she decides to stare back, to try and see her reflection in their eyes that must be so terrible and to change their unfounded opinion of her with the strength of her gaze. But the woman whose eye she catches won't back down. And something clicks between them.

And Elena knows this woman - this woman who is her own age plus forty-one.

One of her past friends from equestrian lessons. Amelie, a daughter of the former stable master. And she looks even older than Elena thinks she should - something about her eyes is haunted.

The thought occurs to her then.

 _What happened?_

The crowned princess decides to consult her cousin. It's not a pretty story - in fact it's as ugly as murder, as horrible as torture. And she realizes she'll never understand.

The pain of losing her parents, while justifiably traumatizing, is nothing compared to her people's pain. How many of them had lost their parents in much the same way she had, and then lost even more? Their possessions, their freedom, their dignity. What could she possibly do to reverse those years of tyranny? How could her presence make up for what had been irreparably lost?

Even with Avalor in this better state, there is little she can think of to do to release the ghosts from her subjects' harrowed eyes.


	3. To Get Out of Our Little Heads

**To Get Out of Our Little Heads**

 _Isabel on keepimg up with technological advancements_

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No matter what she does, she can't seem to make it fit.

She's pretty sure she's using it right - it usually only takes her at most an hour to figure out a new piece of hardware. Maybe she twisted this part the wrong way, or maybe this part goes in the other socket. Oh wait. It doesn't have a connector for the socket...?

Isabel holds the piece up, turning it to see in all the shadowed grooves. She glances down at her invention. And cannot think of where to go from here.

She tries to be careful as she takes her contraption apart, to start fresh from the beginning. But she's seething with frustration and a few of the smaller bolts go flying across the room as she separates two metal plates. She sighs and goes to retrieve them.

And then she realizes, once she finally dislodges the engine, that the piece she had been analyzing simply wouldn't fit in with her old equipment.

She supposes she knew this from the start, but she wasn't going to let that stop her from trying! As an inventor, she would try her hardest to make it work before looking to other options. But the methods that she used to hold fast as working...don't anymore. They've been replaced, updated, or just gotten rid of. And she realizes she might have to get rid of a lot of her tools.

And for some bizarre reason, getting new tools doesn't feel exciting like it normally would. As an inventor, a future-oriented thinker, Isabel had always been excited by new things - excited for potential and opportunity and the chance to learn. It's not that she's not excited, and thank god it's not that she's afraid. She had had quite enough of that feeling.

No, nowadays there's very little to fear, other than a worry of having fallen too far behind...


	4. All I Want's to Find an Easier Way

**All I Want's to Find an Easier Way**

 _Naomi on the importance of cooperation and leadership._

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One of Naomi's first memories is of chasing a ball on a ship's deck.

The ship is leaning starboard and the ball's rolling away. And just when Naomi gets to it, the ship tilts to port.

So she goes to run after the ball and almost loses her balance, but she doesn't, and instead races back across the deck.

Suddenly the ship lurches and sends the ball flying into the air, and she lurches with it, falling forward onto her face. The ball drops in front of her on top of a pile of rope.

As she gets older, she grows and learns and gets her sea legs and instead of just chasing a ball, she'll challenge the crew to games of futbal or floor hockey. And her team will very often win. She's very competitive and refuses to give up when she knows she's not doing her best.

If the water's warm and inviting enough, she'll swim. Once, in a cove, there were even mermaids around her. They were surprisingly friendly - she'd heard stories of men being drowned by them. But then, she isn't a man. And she guesses that's why most of the crew stayed a bit further away. She'll remember that moment of odd independence.

Though there have been times where she's ended up in choppier waters and needed others with her.

She'd been battered by waves rising high above the deck, had fallen into the ocean once or twice but the crew always pulled her back in by her lifeline as she had done for them.

She'd slipped on the ice as the crew descended to push and chip their way out of wintery seascapes. But she regained her footing and chipped alongside the rest.

With her father and shipmates to guide her, she's made it through more than most at her age, no worse for wear and stronger for it. With the knowledge that there are many things you simply can't do alone.

She'll soon find out that not everything is so intuitive, and not everyone is always so willing to help you out.

Most times when coming in to dock, Naomi will help the shipmates, pulling at ropes and rudders.

But sometimes, her father will assure her that the crew has it covered, so Naomi will hoist herself up to the crow's nest. The rope ladder doesn't give her blisters anymore as she climbs above the coasting seagulls.

She'll often take a moment to turn out towards the sea and scan the horizon from only halfway up the ladder, just to feel the wind on her face in an excitingly risky position, but a position she's put herself in many times before and so knows how not to fall.

Up in the nest, she'll put the telescope to her eye, full of anticipation. But at the sight of this place, she hesitates to cry out, "Land ho!" There's a strange sickly atmosphere blanketed over the city, an almost tangible shade of green that's only just dissipating.

Now, as they turn the ship towards Avalor's harbor, she knows it's a place that needs some guidance.

She wonders if that guiding hand is as reliable as her crew has been.

 **A/N Aka: let's play how many sailing terms can Katie fit into a one shot? Not the biggest fan of this one, but it's something I guess.**


End file.
